FinCom Opposes Iverson's STR Proposal, Narrowly Endorses Citizen Article Ahead Of Special Town Meeting

The Finance Committee broke with the Planning Board Friday, voting unanimously to oppose Planning Board chair Dave Iverson’s short-term rental (STR) regulation proposal and 4-3 to endorse Brian Borgeson’s alternative citizen warrant article.

Every member of the Finance Committee who voted on Friday felt that Iverson’s article was too restrictive given the existing economic analysis.

“No dynamic economic impact assessment has been conducted to evaluate potential effects on local GDP, employment, housing availability, or municipal revenue,” chair Jill Veith said. “Implementing such limitations without rigorous data monitoring presents a high degree of economic uncertainty and risk to the island’s overall financial health.”

Finance Director Brian Turbitt estimates that Iverson’s article could cost the island around $2.5 million in tax revenue per year.

“There’s not a lot of opportunity to make it up,” Turbitt said. “I don’t believe we would be able to make up all of this revenue on a dollar-for-dollar basis, so what is the other option that we have to ensure financial stability and a balanced budget, which we have to have? It likely is going to need to be some substantial cuts to the services that all of us as residents, businesses and visitors expect when they’re here.”

“I don’t necessarily agree with his numbers,” Iverson said. “The impact we’re looking at is probably more than one million but less than two…to put the rental business into a linear equation, like Brian [Turbitt] has—but Brian [Turbitt] has no choice, that’s how he has to do it, so I get it—I think does not really give us an accurate picture of what will happen.”

Borgeson’s article would allow STRs by right across the island, except in the commercial-industrial district, without any further regulation beyond what currently exists.

Iverson’s article, billed as a compromise, would cap the number of days a building can be used as an STR at 49 between June 15 and August 31 and 70 in any calendar year. It would also limit the number of changes of occupancy permitted during the peak summer season to seven and require that all STR contracts last at least seven days during the peak season. Hosted stays, where an STR operator lives in the building they are renting, or in another building on the same lot, would be exempt.

“The intention of what I have done was to give voice and options to a large part of our community,” Iverson said. “Give them a voice and a vote at Town Meeting for something they could support, and that’s it, simply. Nothing more than that.”

Iverson’s article will go to Special Town Meeting as Article Two, while Borgeson’s article is Article One.

The vote on Borgeson’s article was much closer. Vieth and members Jeremy Bloomer, Anthonie Goudemond, and Rob Giachetti voted to support Borgeson’s article.

“I believe that Article One is to remedy a legal problem, and I do support that,” Bloomer said. “I believe that Article Two is a conflation of many different issues, and people have piled on to this, and I believe that it needs far more thinking than what has been done, and so I am opposed to that.”

But vice chair Joanna Roche and members Martin McKerrow and Joseph Wright were against Article One.

“We have an economics problem, and I don’t know how we’re going to solve it, but I’m not sure that either of these two things are going to do that,” Roche said. “I think that the purpose of Article One, preventing the lawsuits, I can see that, but I think that I’m concerned that once we do this, there wouldn’t be more work done on [regulating STRs].”

With Peter Schaeffer recused and Chris Glowacki absent, the margin was a single vote.

Public comment prior to the vote was divided, though most speakers backed Borgeson’s article over Iverson’s. With Borgeson absent due to work, former Nantucket Association of Real Estate Brokers president Penny Dey represented his article Friday.

“Article One is simple. It codifies all rentals into our zoning by law, subject to existing and future regulations,” Dey said. “As we know, Nantucket has a long tradition of housing vacationers in private homes. The use is residential and is a property right.”

Notably, Select Board vice chair Matt Fee was one of those who spoke in favor of Iverson’s article during public comment.

“We’re talking about running an economy without employees. We’re talking about economic viability, sustainability of this island,” Fee said. “If we don’t moderate [STRs] somewhat, I think that we will end up with a less desirable island.”

The November Special Town Meeting comes with a heightened sense of urgency surrounding STRs following the June 2025 Massachusetts Land Court ruling in island resident Cathy Ward's lawsuit against her neighbors and the Nantucket Zoning Board of Appeals, which has thrown Nantucket's zoning regulations pertaining to STRs into uncertainty.

In her suit, Ward claimed that her neighbors’ use of their property as an STR violated Nantucket’s zoning code. Land Court judge Michael Vhay has now sided with her twice. The town has appealed his latest ruling, and the parties involved reached a deal in July to pause enforcement of Vhay's decision while that appeal is pending.